Stolen Moments: a lovestory
by Nine Days a Queen
Summary: How exactly did the stoic Minister of War fall for the enigmatic Thief's daughter? This is their story. - First Place Winner of Sounis's Family-Fic Challenge!
1. Part One: Love

**Title: Stolen Moments: a lovestory**

**Author: ninedaysaqueen **

**Thanks to: openedlocket, thelasteddis, & stubefied_by_gd **

**Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of _The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings_, nor of any characters, locations, and elephants contained within. All rights of the _Queen's Thief_ series belong exclusively to Megan Whalen Turner and her respective publishers.**

**Spoilers: Book 1 only.**

**Rating: PG/K+ - For some very (very) minor swearing. Nothing worse than what appears in the books themselves. **

**Genre: Angst/Romance/Fluff/Pre-series - Yeah, I covered all departments with this one.**

**Word Count: 3,300**

**Summary: How exactly did the stoic Minister of War fall for the enigmatic Thief's daughter? This is their story. **

**Author's Note: I may have taken some small liberties concerning Eddisian culture and the nature of the Thief's title that are not necessarily supported by cannon but are not contradicted by it either. *waves artistic license***

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Part 1: Love<strong>

_**(verse)**_

She stole from him.

It started when they were young. At the time, he knew of her only as one of his many (many) distant cousins. The court knew of her as the daughter of the Thief – illusively charming, witty, gracious, bratty (the last part was is own observation). The girl, whom everyone assumed, would continue one of Eddis's most ancient and useless traditions. He could speculate she wouldn't have agreed with him on the useless part or really... any of his observations concerning her character and family. Thus, he was surprised when she took an interest in him; surprised when she stole from him.

The first thing she took was a fibula pin. Not his fanciest nor his most expensive, but his sturdiest and most practical. He'd spent hours going through his drawers and searching behind furniture; only to see her walking near the stables one morning with his missing pin securing her cloak to her shoulders. He'd approached her (in righteous indignation) to demand she return the stolen item. She turned into an alley as soon as he had gotten within a half a dozen steps. When he reached the corner, she was gone. She never would tell him how she did that. He found a new pin lying on his desk the next day. Just as sturdy but a degree more fancy. He never wore it.

But he kept it.

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><p>She cheated at cards.<p>

Or so he was convinced. Gambling was a meant to be man's game, but he suspected the reason she excelled at it lay somewhere in her feminine charm. She bet erratically. One turn barely maintaining her place in the game and the next sacrificing half her wins for gods knows what reason. She never folded, went all in more often than he thought a sane person should, and seemed to anticipate her opponent's hand by some sort of divine informant.

Winning was suppose to be the result careful observations and calculated moves executed efficiently by a competent player. Achieved in a strategic and scientific manner. This was how he always played, yet she always managed to rob him blind of his pocket money.

She _definitely_ cheated.

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><p>She danced circles around him.<p>

Literally. She would appear at his right arm and seizing his wrists, she would bully him out among the festive motions. She was easily half his size, yet he knew it wasn't physical strength that allowed her to drag him across the open court. He could dance; a little. In the manner he'd been taught to flatter visiting debutants and potential brides. She would spin circles around him, laughing manically. Obviously enjoying his irritated glare as he was left without a partner in an open dancing court. She did so more and more often as they got older, eventually coaching him on his steps rather than spinning away to brighter and more talented prospects. The coaching usually brewed into a banter, which would occasionally boil over into an argument.

He eventually began to realize how his preconceived notions about the Thieves were often the cause.

She walked on the roof.

As nonchalant as if it were the hallways to the dinning hall or the stairs to the sleeping rooms. He'd see her sometimes from his window, nimbly striding along the parapet, hopping from one to the other, sometimes adding a little twirl. He'd stride up the stairs to shout at her to come down. She was never there when he reached the top.

If only he could remember to step more quietly.

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><p><em><strong>(refrain)<strong>_

"You want to know what I think, oh Prince of the Sword?"

He'd ignored her when she sat down and was planning to continue ignoring her. That never did work.

"That I've been cursed by the gods?"

She laughed. "Not quite. I think you really aren't so irritated by me as you pretend to be. Why else would you talk to me so often?"

"I believe it's you who usually does the talking."

Her smile grew. "No, really. What I think is that you're just not being honest with yourself."

He went back to ignoring her, until she poked him. Twice.

"And honesty is something you are so well versed in?" He finally snapped.

"Oh, touché! And here I was going to give this back to you."

He looked up to see her shaking his belt purse at eye level. He snatched it from her grip. She didn't evade and simply laughed when he checked the contents.

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><p><em><strong>(verse)<strong>_

She loved him.

He never understood it at the time. The teasing, the baiting, the stealing, the sarcastic banters, the special attention. She had known; for quite some time. She was just waiting for him to catch up. Waiting for him to realize...

He loved her too.


	2. Part Two: Marriage

**Part 2: Marriage**

She was the mother of his children.

Two sons. The first studious, reserved but with eyes full of humor and intelligence. The second a stocky boy, shorter like the men in his mother's family, yet stoic in manner like his father.

Two daughters. Both as beautiful as the blooming rose in high spring; born with the natural propriety of any dignified court lady. At least, when their mouths were closed.

And one son many years later. Out of all his children, it was that one son the concerned him the most. He was born two weeks late, facing the wrong direction. The doctors warned him of this as an ill omen. They claimed with a superstitious undertone that a baby unable to follow even the most basic rules of life could not grew into an obedient and noble son. A son a man of his importance would be proud to call his own.

They were right about the first part, at least...

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><p>She taught their children to do hand-stands.<p>

That was only the start of it, really. He didn't think much of it at first. She'd taught them all same basic acrobatics – how to tumble, how to do a cartwheel, how to stand on their head. It was all for play. Little tricks to amuse them, so they would sleep through the night; or so he thought.

His stupidity resulted in him nearly falling off his horse one morning, when upon entering the courtyard, he saw his youngest son climbing one of the leaning buttresses that led up to the main roof of the megaron; as quickly and as nimbly as if he were a spider.

He should have known she was testing them.

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><p>She knew their son's fate.<p>

As did her own father. Sometimes in hushed, private tones and sometimes loud enough for the entire court to hear, they would discus between them the boy's future. Sometimes they seemed joyful. Glad that an heir to their tradition was guaranteed. Other times, they seemed worried. Concerned about the boy's personal desires and whether or not he'd be up to the task. As if him becoming the Thief was his inevitable destiny; as if there was no other choice. He should have gone right then and there to Eugenides's altar and demanded his son back.

He should have prayed for her life while he was at it.

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><p><em><strong>(refrain) <strong>_

"It's written in stone if you haven't noticed. My grandfather, his father. Always the same way."

"You would need not concern yourself with that if you'd simply stay off the roof," he had mentioned somewhat irritably. A Thief had never fallen in his lifetime, and he dismissed the notion as superstitious nonsense. The fact that many Thieves died from falls seemed to him a logical outcome, considering they spent half their lives four stories off the ground.

"You might sooner ask me to stop breathing. It would probably be easier." She sulked for a moment and was silent as she sipped her tea."You don't believe me."

"Oh, I believe you. I just think you're taking this too seriously. You're ancestors were probably rather careless. You are more careful, correct?"

"Generally speaking."

"Need I remind you that you have five children?"

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Oh believe me, my dear husband. You need not remind me."

She fell.

Not two weeks later.


	3. Part Three: Mourning

**Part 3: Mourning**

_**(finale refrain) **_

"This..." he clenched his teeth barely keeping his voice even. He soon failed. "This is how you honor your family! This is how you show your respect for me!" His son glared back at him, equally impassioned and equally furious.

"I intend to honor my family! _My family_! I don't care what you or our other 'respectable' relative think!"

The rest of their relations looked on, a mix of blank stares and cringes of discomfort. He barely noticed them. The various aunts and uncles and distant cousins who were attending his wife's wake, traditionally held immediately prior to the cremation. He knew he would have to address this matter soon, but not this soon. Not while his vision was clouded in red. Not as he was preparing himself to watch his wife's body reduced to ashes and a thin trial of smoke

He took a deep breath before he did something he would truly regret, and pulling his chair further out; reseated himself. He would not get anywhere with his son by shouting at him. "I am..." he chose his words as delicately as his current temper would allow, "_uninformed_ as to what you might consider 'respectable', but know this: I will not, under any known circumstances, allow you to carry on the tradition of the Thief." His son opened his mouth to object, but he cut him off. "Be anything else! A soldier, a scholar, and goddamn groomsman for all it matters, but as long as I am alive, you will not take up that cursed title."

There was a long moment of silence as father and son remained locked in a hard glare. "Gods, you must have hated her." His son had to know that wasn't true, but neither of them was thinking about ramifications.

"What?" he responded, heatedly.

"You heard me." He should have more than vaguely noted that the boy's voice was cracking in grief. "You must be overjoyed that she's dead. No longer around to complicate your social circles and muddy your bloodline with more children like _me_!" With that he stormed off before anyone could retort.

His son did not return for the funeral. His father didn't blame him.

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><p><em><strong>(bridge) <strong>_

She died.

Alone. Her legs twisted and broken. Her neck bent at an unnatural angle. Blood pooling from were she'd cracked her head on the pavement. Eyes wide open. Staring vacantly.

He still didn't know why he hadn't seen her that night. Why he hadn't looked for her when he'd rolled over in their bed and noticed she wasn't there. He didn't understand why she fell that night of all nights. Under a clear summer sky with plenty of moonlight to guide her steps and no spots of ice on the ledges to upset her balance. The type of night she would spend dancing on the rooftop to a song only she could hear. The way she had lived her entire life.

He couldn't remembered why he hadn't listened more carefully to her about the fate of the Thieves - the manner in which she had always warned him she would die. He didn't know why he hadn't tried to stop her from being so reckless, doing whatever it took to ensure she lived to an old age. To guarantee she saw all her children reach adulthood, get married, and bear her grandchildren. He couldn't understand why his son, after seeing his mother's blood washed off the courtyard cobbles, would still insist upon following in her footsteps. Her footsteps that led right to the edge of a wall and ended in a pool of blood.

Honestly, there was only one thing he understood anymore. His son would not become the Thief. His son would not die from a fall. Eugenides would not steal anyone else from his family; to this he swore.

He swore it at her god's altar; he swore it upon her grave; he swore it to her father; he swore it at his son when he handed him his enrollment papers; and what he swore he meant.

Eugenides would learn that.


	4. Part Four: Peace

**Author Notes: I originally wrote this final part as a sequel to _Stolen Moments,_ and published it on my LJ under the title, _Stolen Words: what remains of a lovestory_. Thus this part is written in a slightly different style then the previous chapters. **

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Part 4: Peace<strong>

_**(interlude)**_

"She wouldn't want this."

It's late in the afternoon. The sun shimmers in through the high library windows, the dust that floats in the air glitters like stars in the night. It was all the light he needed to write by.

"I know." His answer is curt. He doesn't want to talk about this. Not when he's spent far too much time thinking, talking, and shouting about it in the past few months. He has work to do. He swirls his quill in black ink then blots the tip. Her father watches blankly. The minister hopes he'll go away soon, but it's always too much to hope when it comes to the Thieves.

"If you know, then why, might I ask, are you doing it?" That should be a simple question.

It's not.

Still focused on his reports he answers, "You know perfectly well why."

"No. No, I honestly don't." The older man's voice is rising, uncharacteristically. "You're his father. I respect that, but if you are doing this out of some misguided sense of responsibility-"

"_Misguided,_" he's close to shouting. Again with the shouting. He can't remember shouting so much in his life.

Her father redirects, "So, so, so. You believe that soldiers lead far safer careers? Are there less accidents with sharpened swords and blunt cudgels then there are on rooftops and balconies? Less risk in the heat of battle along some foreign shore, then in the dead of night in someone's treasure room? Is that what you think?"

"Yes, yes it is."

There is quiet. "She was my daughter, you remember? But that doesn't stop me."

"It should." A two word accusation; along with more silence.

The old man sighs then groans, "Oh, I warned her."

The minster looks away but asks tartly, "Of what?" He's genuinely curious, even if he sounds angry.

"That you wouldn't understand. That you never would understand when the time came about."

_You don't believe me._

_It's the way it always happens._

_I know. I know._

"Enlighten me."

"You can't keep someone from their destiny. No matter how hard you fight; no matter how much you yell. There are things that must happen, and we must accept that." The topic seems to have changed, but it was always about that in the end. Always about that balmy summer night.

"Is that what you tell yourself?" There should be more malice in his words, but it just comes out sounding pathetic.

The old man laughs and leans back on his heels. "Oh, I wish I had something so simple to tell myself, but no... It's what I'm telling you now, because if you don't listen to me, you'll lose both of them. And this time it will be worse; because this time, it will be by choice."

With little more than a creak of the floorboards, the old man is gone.

By choice? Is that really so bad? Either way, the old man was right about one thing. He never did understand, and he thinks he never will. It wasn't his place. It wasn't his task. He knew that before. He accepted it before, and look what happened. Could he do the same? Could he live with himself ten, twenty years down the road, when he lost even more to the will of the gods and their so-called destiny?

"Sir, do you need more ink?" He flinches; he didn't hear anyone come in.

It's a girl he's never seen before; unusual, but not unheard of. She must be a new servant from down the mountain. He has no idea what's she doing in the library without a broom or a bucket of water.

"No, thank you. I have plenty." He goes back to writing, hoping his abrupt tone will scare her away.

"You never know," she starts again, speaking with far more confidence then a servant girl fresh-from-the-farm should have. "I often think I have plenty, then you humans go blundering about, and I have to rewrite half my work."

He stops writing and sets his quill down hard on the table top. "Is that some sort of joke? Who are you?"

She laughs, impossibly high and melodic. "I have many names, but the one that you would recognize is the one you already know."

Suddenly, he sees it – white drapes, pale skin, long fingers always seen with a perfect fletched quill held tightly in her grasp. There is a long moment of silence. He must be delusional.

"You can't be serious?" She smiles and the word dies on his lips, barely voiced.

_Moira._

She nods. "I have one thing to say to you. One thing that will save both of us much in the way of time, patience, and ink."

He stares for a moment before asking. "One thing?" the minister repeats.

"Listen," her voice is gentle, but its behest is not. "Just listen. It is all that we ask."

"You ask far more than that." He decides to indulge his imagination, at least for a few more minutes.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose we do," she remains unperturbed and her gaze drifts to the floor. "But we only ask what we must. _Always._ Only what we must." There is quiet as her words linger in the air, in the sunlight, in the dust – the filth that glows like stars only when looked at properly.

She is gone.

He stands up, knocking his chair over. He doesn't hear how it crashes against the floorboards. He looks around, leans his head past the bookshelves, opens and shuts the door, stoops to look under the tables.

She's gone. She didn't say much, but neither does he. Often times, there is no need. _Often times_.

"That's all you have to say to me?" he speaks to nothing but the walls, the books, and the dust. "After all of this, that is all you have to say!" There's the shouting again. "Listen? That's all you want me to do!" with that he scatters the papers on the table. The ink spills across the wood. It would be a familiar site if blood happened to be black.

He takes a deep breath, calming his raging nerves. She would know. She would know exactly what to do. He sits down again, running his fingers through his hair. There is a single page that remains on the table, half bent and sullied with ink. There's something written on it. Script too large to be his own.

He straightens his shoulders, picking up the page. Ink drips from one corner. Do gods send post messages now? He might believe anything after today.

He wipes some of the ink off with his blotting cloth, so he can unfurl the edges without tearing the page. The writing is jagged, hurried, far too large, and wasteful of ink.

He recognizes it.

_**It's what remains of our lovestory. Don't let it be a waste.**_

_You don't believe me._

_You don't have to remind me, my dear husband._

_I know. I know._

He leans back in his chair with a sigh and sets the paper down, out of reach from the spreading pool of ink. It's not long before he gets up and walks out the door.

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><p><em><strong>(finis)<strong>_

"I'll never approve."

That's not the worst he's said, and his son doesn't answer. Doesn't even look over his shoulder. They have already passed one another in the hall but neither walks forward.

It's only been since this morning that they were shouting in the courtyard. It's now very late in the afternoon. He doesn't understand what has changed, but he knows he doesn't need to.

"And I'll never understand, but that doesn't matter. Not to you, at least. Not _for_ you." With that he looks over his shoulder, and he sees that his son is staring at him; jaw open, visibly shocked.

He walks away.

He's always been a man of few words, and often times; there really is no need. It's enough. It's has to be enough, and he does suppose that with the Thieves, it is never too much to hope.

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><p><strong>Thank you for reading,<strong>

**ninedaysaqueen**


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